The Killing Intent
by Spellsmith
Summary: What if the Narutoverse genuinely had a power that could paralyze and even kill people with the power of a dark look? What if that was made into a Kekkei Genkai, a special ability that everyone's favorite blonde kid uses to get ahead in the ruthless world of Shinobi warfare? fem!Sasuke x Naruto, rated M for definite violence and possible sexual themes in the future.
1. In the Darkness

Killing Intent: Chapter 1

Darkness. The absence of light. The pretense from which all things begin and the inevitable end of everything else. It was in this darkness into which a young blonde boy found himself awakening. As he rose, hip-deep in water in this sewer-like dreamscape, the rancid smell wafted into his acute nostrils, filling his senses and causing bile to rise up in his stomach. Feeling the saliva under his tongue that prepared him for the vomit that desperately wanted to be expelled from his mouth, he swallowed hard a few times to suppress the involuntary reaction. The boy looked around in the darkness, trying to get his bearings as his stomach roiled with the fear, apprehension, and anxiety that began to grip his heart in that moment.

Standing slowly, carefully to his feet, the boy tried to ignore the feeling of strange particles within the dirty water that flowed in between his toes, the sewage lapping against his calves as he rose to get a better vantage point on his new environment. When did he get here? How did he get here? These questions bounced around in his mind as he took one step, and then another, towards what sounded similar to a strange, growling noise coming from a nearby corridor. His breathing came slightly faster as he forced himself to progress down the strange hallways, and the child could feel his heart beating ever faster within his chest. Putting one foot in front of the other, he tentatively brought himself closer to that mysterious presence, the water around his legs gradually lowering in its depth until he came eventually into a large, black antechamber split in half by large metal bars, shadows dancing in his sight as the young boy tried to look beyond the cell. Standing now in water that washed over his feet and splashed against his ankles, he stood in the middle of the enormous room, gazing into the prison from which that growling came.

Suddenly, a large, reddish-brown paw erupted forth from between those great wrought-iron bars, before it landed on the wet floor with a sickening crunch, crumbling the tile beneath the water. A bark also emerged from behind the barrier, and a voice growled out quietly, menacingly in a deceptive way. "It has been six years since I was put in this cage, and you finally come before me. Have another *bad dream*~?" The demonic voice was not kind, yet its timber was calm and soothing, in the way a fox may speak to an innocent chick who wandered outside of the chicken coop, with the intent to lead the poor child away into the dark forest and to a fateful end. "You will find that this hell is a darker nightmare world than any you could have dreamed up, little one. Why have you come here?" The presence snarls at the innocent boy, feeling a malefic sense of pride at seeing the way the boy falls backwards and stumbles, trying to form an answer in his own mind.

The small boy trembled before the large, imposing specter, his eyes big like saucers, blue irises narrowed as his pupils dilated in reaction to the darkness around him. "I… d-don't know why I am here, Mr. Fox. Please don't hurt me…" What little light that illuminated the space came from the torches on the distant walls to both sides of the two beings, which ricocheted around, casting an even more evil glare upon the fox within its prison. The beast within crouched forward, revealing his slightly canine, slightly feline features as his snout poked through between two thick bars. He huffed from his nose, the warm air rising up into the rafters of the sewer, creating a breeze up high that caused a large canvas-like banner stretched across the bars to flutter, the runes on its cloth rippling and catching the child's attention briefly.

"W-what is that up there…?" Another growl came from the enormous creature behind the steel bars and a resigned sigh was heard before he collapsed on the ground, tired of the intimidation act. The boy obviously was afraid of him, but this damned cell did not do much to improve the fear factor, and the little one clearly seemed more curious about this place than about him. Whipping two of his tails back and forth, splashing the water behind him, he mumbled out a response to the boy. "How old are you, little one?"

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki, and I'm a big six-year-old. Believe it!" The blond-haired kid looked back down at the Fox, his rapt attention torn from the magical seal above and staring at the beast, before making his declaration with a thumb-up and a big grin.

"Precisely… And how many years ago did the 'Evil Nine-Tailed Fox' attack your precious Village Hidden in the Leaves?" The small human looked away for a moment at that before sitting, practically lopping himself down, on the flooded floor beneath him, slouching forward and putting his chin in his hands while he thought deeply about this. Despite his bravado, Naruto had never been known for his intelligence, after all. "Also six years…? Wait… Are you saying that you're the-?"

"Truly, you have a dizzying intellect." Somewhere far, far away, perhaps in an alternate universe with a mythical country called "Florin", a former-farmboy-turned-masked-swashbuckling-hero sneezed, his gentle wife frowning at him and asking if he was alright. "Yes, little Naruto: I am the Kyuubi, the Nine-Tailed Fox, the Demon that attacked your home when you were just a baby. The history of how you were born is a called a Class S classified secret punishable by death in your society, and even I would not defy the village leader you affectionately call 'Old Man'. I can say, however, that on the night you were born, your father and mother trapped me and put me into your belly, giving you that tattoo around your stomach." The Fox grumbled and pointed at the stunned child, who in turn looked down at himself and at the curious mark that had always been over his belly button. Now looking away and thinking about the myriad of magical jutsu techniques even the Third Hokage himself had hidden away, terrible things he could do to a creature of Chakra energy, the Fox turned his massive head back to Naruto as the child prepared yet another question. Of course, he was full of them...

"But… why would they do that?" Naruto looked up at the Fox with a curious look in his big blue eyes, but after a moment realized that the Fox either did not have answers to that line of inquiry, or would not be immediately forthcoming with the answers he did have, and blinked as the creature above him replied. "Well, I hate you less than I would and probably more than I should, little one. What I can tell you, child, is that I would like to help you. Don't give me that confused look: I have a vested interest in your continued longevity and the quality of your life. You did not ask for this existence, after all, and I have seen the way the people in your village treat you…" Naruto sighed sadly at that comment, allowing himself to flashback to all the time he was called names like "Demon" or "Evil Brat", and the stone-throwing from many of the more brazen citizens in the large metropolitan city he lived in called the Hidden Leaf Village or "Konohagakure".

Rocking back and forth, not quite as terrified of the Fox as he was before, due in part to the fact that the child knew what the malevolent creature truly was now, he looked up at the Fox's blood-red eyes, another question forming in his brain. "How would you help me?" The Fox took a large breath in and exhaled it into the child's face, hot and moist air blasting him immediately and knocking him over. "I will show you next time you go to sleep. For now, it is time to wake up." As soon as he was blasted with the Fox's breath, Naruto sprung up in his small, dirty bed, gasping half in shock and half in relief at the realization that he was indeed alive and all of that was just a weird, possibly bad, dream. Or was it? Looking over at his analog alarm clock and seeing the short "hand" on the 6, he jumped out of bed, deciding that for now he had bigger things to worry about: the first day of Ninja Academy! And the grand opening of a new ramen stand a few blocks away…

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Author's Note: PLEASE review and let me know if I should even continue with this story. I have read so many bad fanfictions that I decided to try my hand at it, just not doing all the things they did...


	2. A New Day

Killing Intent- Chapter 2

_Rocking back and forth, not quite as terrified of the Fox as he was before, due in part to the fact that the child knew what the malevolent creature truly was now, he looked up at the Fox's blood-red eyes, another question forming in his brain. "How would you help me?" The Fox took a large breath in and exhaled it into the child's face, hot and moist air blasting him immediately and knocking him over. "I will show you next time you go to sleep. For now, it is time to wake up." As soon as he was blasted with the Fox's breath, Naruto sprung up in his small, dirty bed, gasping half in shock and half in relief at the realization that he was indeed alive and all of that was just a weird, possibly bad, dream. Or was it? Looking over at his analog alarm clock and seeing the short "hand" on the 6, he jumped out of bed, deciding that for now he had bigger things to worry about: the first day of Ninja Academy! And the grand opening of a new ramen stand a few blocks away…_

Leaping up out of his bed, Naruto quickly ran into his bathroom, throwing open the door with a creaking sound, the naked, flickering lightbulb overhead threatening to finally go out after years of neglect. Hurriedly brushing his teeth and running his fingers through the thick yellow hair that could never be tamed, the young boy leaves, racing down the hallway and back into his living-room-slash-bedroom, feeling the hardwood floors beneath his bare feet. He almost slips and falls, but miraculously regains his balance before his butt would have hit the floor hard, and in a few fluid motions throws on a clean pair of underwear, his practically trademark orange jumpsuit, and his new ninja sandals.

Out the door at last in a record time of five minutes, the child dashes down the steps from his apartment door and out into the wide cobblestone streets of Konoha. All around him, the giant village was beginning to wake up themselves, some citizens throwing open their windows only to sneer at the boy as he raced by, others yelling "Where are you running this morning, little shit!?" But as always, Naruto did not let this bother him, at least outwardly so: he ran onwards, gleeful in his demeanor as he relished the feel of the new footwear on the soles of his feet, a gift from his adopted grandfather and, at this point in his young life, his only positive male role model and father-figure. But quality is better than quantity, right?

Naruto leapt up onto a nearby building, probably one of the many small grocery stores that littered this specific market district, heedless of the yelling and cursing from down below him. Unnoticed by the blond who was hopping between rooftops and narrowly escaping death or serious injury from fall damage, one particular dark-haired girl in the street looked up with a brief moment's notice and curiosity. Before she could stare for too long though, she felt a pull on her hand and the looming figure of her father was tugging her forward, and Sasuko obediently followed him down the increasingly busy street, the bright morning sun rising quickly in the dawn sky and shining over the tops of most of the smaller buildings.

At last, the rushing blonde had arrived at his destination: the Academy! Practically skidding to a stop and kicking up dust behind him along the pathway leading towards the imposing educational facility, he brakes immediately in front of the door. No sooner had he arrived than that one of the teachers opened the big wooden door smoothly, leaning over the energetic young ninja hopeful. This man would have been terrifying to look at upon first sight with his wild brown hair in a top-knot ponytail and the grisly scar that stretched over his nose from one cheek bone to the other, but the otherwise softness of his features was deceptively gentle. Smiling on instinct at the child and welcoming him in despite his tardiness, Iruka Umino immediately let his face fall into a frown when he saw who this latest student was, his eyes narrowing at the boy and glaring holes into his back as Naruto entered the classroom, the fascinated kid himself looking at the many strange faces around him. He felt the look from the adult behind him, very much the same as every other adult who looked at him in his life except for the Old Man. He quickly surveyed the rest of the class already gathered and in their seats, seeing the way the desks were divided into long tables that could sit three children, and steps leading up to the half-dozen different rows of seats. Sitting at an abandoned desk at the front with no one else there, Naruto could tell that this first day would be the way every day had been in his life: isolated, ignored, and neglected…

"Alright class, now that everyone is finally here…" Iruka took this moment to cast a pointed glare at the newest arrival to the classroom before continuing, "We will start today's class session with a brief history lesson of our great Village. I see most of you come from civilian families, but who can tell me what a ninja is?" Naruto almost immediately jumped up out of his seat, raising his hand and shouting for attention, but after a few seconds of otherwise silent children, Iruka continued his lecture, ignoring the boy's outburst. "Ninja are the elite soldiers of this world we live in, trained in the use of Chakra energy, the combination of both physical and spiritual energies that every person has, using this Chakra to perform feats of strength called jutsus that make one ninja worth a hundred regular foot soldiers. These techniques are used for specialized missions such as assassinations, intelligence gathering, etc. They are also split into various types, but have three primary classifications…"

The rest of the day passed on in a similar fashion, with the teacher droning on about boring technical things. After a few more failed attempts to get Iruka's attention and participate actively in this class, Naruto began to let his mind drift away to other things, laying his head on the desk and soon falling into the much more pleasant realm of his dreams, filled with the intoxicating smell of ramen noodles and grilled pork. Birds whistled and sang their songs outside and the sun warmed the trees in the school playground nearby, and from his vantage point near a window, Naruto could feel the cool breeze come into the classroom and rustle his hair. Before he knew it, the class was over and the entire room was empty. Lifting his head to look around, Naruto saw the teacher gathering up some papers in his hands, tapping them against the surface of the desk at the front of the room to straighten them out, before he also turned to go, not giving the boy a single glance before exiting the classroom. And so passed the first day of his classes at the Ninja Academy.

Putting together his own things which consisted of just a few papers that the teacher had been legally obliged to give him, Naruto likewise rose from his seat, shuffling out of the now-vacant classroom. As he left through the backdoor, cicadas began to chirp and the soothing scent of the evening air surrounded the boy, somehow invigorating him in a way, and while he stood there for a moment to let nature caress him in a way no human ever would, the boy began to smell something else on the wind. Opening his eyes and blinking a few times in surprise, the food-obsessed boy literally smacked himself in the face, before remembering the other reason he had been excited to wake up this morning: the new ramen stand! Folding his papers and shoving them haphazardly into the inside of his orange and navy blue jacket, Naruto ran off towards the food district nearby, and with the same enthusiasm with which he had bolted to the Academy that morning, he soon found himself standing outside the curtained entrance to the small, quaint ramen stand with a large sign up above that read "Grand Opening: Ichiraku Ramen".

Brushing the trivial barrier to the side, the precocious blonde walked into the new restaurant, for a brief moment not caring if the owners threw him out as all previous restaurants had done to him in the past, as his hand fell down protectively to his hip where he kept his most prized possession and his only true friend, Gama-chan. The bloated, green frog-shaped wallet slept happily within the boy's pocket, filled to the brim with the monthly stipend money he had received from the Old Man the past few months. The boy sat at the counter, which was more like a bar, the sizzling and popping sounds of frying oil and boiling noodles enticing his ears from behind a separate curtain that segregated the dining space from the kitchen in the back. He swiped his hands repeatedly along the pristine wooden bar, the smooth finish gliding underneath his fingertips pleasantly. Finally grinning at the young girl only perhaps five or six years older than him who stood behind the counter, her name-tag reading "Ayame", Naruto took only half a second to read over the menu before loudly declaring that he would have ten bowls of pork ramen, extra pork.

Hearing the outrageous order, a heavy-set middle-aged man popped his head from around the corner and from within the kitchen, holding a wooden ladle in one hand which dripped with broth. Seeing that the ecstatic child at the counter was the only customer they had (not surprising since this individual had come in at the exact moment they were supposed to close for the evening), Teuchi Ichiraku frowned with both his mouth and his brow, his eyebrows furrowing as it took only a moment to realize exactly who his customer was. That Demon brat… Ayame looked back at her father as the moment passed by, the ticking of a nearby clock on the wall counting the seconds between breaths for all three of the people there. The girl gave the older man a confused expression, before Teuchi came fully from behind the curtains, his large belly preceding the rest of his impressive presence.

Standing tall and strong, the man exuded a confidence and a power similar to that of the Village's chief executive, the leader of their Ninja military known as the Hokage, the chef's vast, imposing stature casting a shadow on the two children as he calmly put his ladle down and set it to the side, leaning over and glaring at the boy until their noses touched. "I know what you are, punk, and you are lucky I don't throw you out on your ass. And after roughing you up a bit too. But let me ask you one question…" Naruto swallowed a lump in his throat, more afraid of this man than he had been scared of perhaps any other adult in recent memory. "We were almost closing up shop for the night, so can you really eat ten bowls of pork ramen, extra pork?" The boy shrinked away slightly, before a surge of pride and courage filled his heart at the sound of a challenge, and he cast the shop owner one of his signature grins that could light up a room. "I sure as heck can, you geezer, and you better believe it!"

At hearing this, Teuchi surprised everyone in the little ramen stand, including perhaps himself, when he let out a soft chuckle. The sound was like a jolly old man whose entire purpose in life was to make and give presents to good little children, though he lacked the beard for it, and as he laughed the atmosphere in the room seemed to ease a bit. Turning around with an equally-surprising swiftness and an elegant swish of his large apron, the man went back into the kitchen and a mere few minutes later, came back out carrying nearly a dozen fresh bowls of ramen noodles, placing them all in front of the boy. Within less than the time it took to cook the stuff, the kid had practically inhaled the food before him, putting two thumbs up as he slurped the noodles. With the girl and her father laughing and telling him to slow down, this was the happiest he had felt with other people in Konoha since… a long time. From the street outside, one young elementary-school teacher walked past, peering in between the outside curtains, and saw the strange sight of the demon container laughing with the two strangers. He scratched his scarred nose before walking away, rolling his eyes at the ridiculous sight.

Long after the boy had nearly emptied his entire wallet and left to go home, hopefully for once unscathed for this night at least, Teuchi was back in his kitchen cleaning the last of the dishes as his daughter put a hand on his broad shoulder, tilting her head up at him to ask a question. "Dad… was that the kid everyone yells at in the grocery market?" Her straight auburn hair falling into her face, Ayame frowned at her father, worried about the boy. "Yes, my little princess. I had heard terrible things about that Naruto myself, but I'll tell you something I realized earlier tonight: you know the way you can put salted pork into a vase and hide it in a dark place to keep it safe? Well the thing that kid has in him… he is nothing more than a vessel for it. And more important than anything else, that brat is a valuable customer! Did you see how much food he ate?"

Ayame sighed, nodding at her father's simple-yet-sage wisdom, before returning to her task of drying the dishes that her father passed over to her, staring at the ragged cloth in her grasp as a hundred thoughts bounced around in her mind. Due to her age, she was old enough to remember when Naruto was born and shortly after the Kyuubi's attack on the Village, people began to talk in murmurs around the market about the evil spirit the boy contained within him. She really did hope the kid would come back soon, even if that just meant he had gotten home safely this night...

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Author's Note: I decided to update this quicker than I thought I would with some extra thoughts for exposition. The next few chapters will develop the plot more, with probably some eventual time-skips (yay, everyone's favorite narrative device /s). Don't forget to please review and let me know how it is developing!


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